


And I Won't Leave You Falling

by Soul_in_the_Starlight



Category: James Bond (Craig movies), James Bond (Movies)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Oral Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-30
Updated: 2012-11-30
Packaged: 2017-11-19 22:51:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,802
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/578496
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Soul_in_the_Starlight/pseuds/Soul_in_the_Starlight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>But I won't give you up, I won't let you down...</p>
            </blockquote>





	And I Won't Leave You Falling

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the following prompt at bondkink.livejournal.com
> 
> Bill is always there for James, however he is the one in need of comfort this time round.

Tanner doesn't smoke, but nothing is normal any more, so he sucks in a lungful of the tar and nicotine and doesn't care what it's doing to the delicate mucus lining of his lungs, which are already burning and dry from the panic attack.

He'd almost collapsed when the word came in from Bond that M was gone, and only the surprisingly fast reaction of the skinny Quartermaster stops Tanner splitting his skull on the corner of the workstation.

The cigarettes belong to some girl in Q branch, apparently. Tanner doesn't care, he's just sprawled on the cold Tarmac of the road above the temporary headquarters, the bitter night air numbing his fingers and his lungs, the empty beer bottle acting as an ashtray, the tobacco head rush the only thing that makes any sense right now, as he chain-smokes his way to hysteria.

When Q eventually finds him, Tanner is a mess of snot, vomit and incoherence. Q doesn't do bodily fluids, nor sentiment, so fetches Mallory to haul Tanner back inside and clean him up.

Despite being ordered to, Tanner refuses to go home until he hears that Bond, and M's body, are on their way back to London. He mooches cigarettes off another colleague and goes and slumps in the doorway to the bunker, only tempted back in with the news of the helicopter having landed, and the promise of a Mallory-sanctioned shot of whiskey in his coffee.

He passes out around 6am, sitting in M's chair, and Q puts one of the blankets from medical over him, as he lays head-in-arms across M's desk, the fingers of one hand clutching her china bulldog.

***

It's Bond who wakes him with a mug of tea, two paracetamol and a bacon sandwich, refusing to say anything about Scotland until Tanner has eaten and drunk and taken his pills. 

When Tanner is finished, Bond hauls him off to the showers, and steps in to take over when emotions resurface, and the unsteady hand is going to take more skin than hair off of Tanner's face.

Clean and shaved, teeth brushed and fresh clothes from his locker acquired, Tanner is accompanied by Bond to the small room where M is laid out.

***

In all his years of active service, Bond has never seen the color actually drain from someone's face in the way it runs from Tanner's, like sand through the neck of an hourglass.

M looks peaceful at least, and the wound is hidden under the sheet pulled up to her waist, her hands on top of one another across her stomach.

Bond grabs Tanner and bends him over when he sees him start to sway, giving his heart less of a battle against gravity to get the blood back in to his brain. He starts to hyperventilate, so Bond gets him on the floor with his back against the wall, legs bent, and looks him in the eye, breathing with him to help him get his rhythm back under control.

A stab of guilt invades Bond's gut, twisting and ripping at his insides, knowing that the last Tanner saw of M was her disappearance at his hands. At least he himself got to say goodbye, to hold her as she breathed her last. A perverse sort of comfort.

When his friend achieves a state of reasonable calm, Bond helps him up, and takes him over to to where M lies, holding his hand like a child. Tanner reaches out, shaking uncontrollably as he gingerly touches M's uppermost hand.

He looks at Bond as if seeking permission, and the agent smiles at him kindly, with a small nod. Tanner takes hold of M's hand, squeezing Bond's hand tightly in his other as he lifts M's, and leans forward to press a trembling kiss to the back of it, silent tears rolling down his face as he holds the cold hand against his cheek.

Bond blinks away tears that threaten to fall from his own eyes; but they're for Tanner, who looks completely stricken, as he gently lays M's hand back on top of her other one. He turns to Bond, his eyes so full of pain that Bond feels like he's been punched in the gut.

Suddenly, Bond grabs Tanner, and pulls him into a fierce embrace, crushing the weeping man to him, feeling Tanner clinging to him desperately, hiccupy sobs escaping him, piercing Bond's heart as keenly as any knife.

The sounds echo around the tiny, bare room, and Bond would gladly trade the rush of water in his his ears, as he sank to his near-death in Istanbul, for the sounds of abject despair from his oldest friend, who now wets Bond's shoulder with his tears.

***

Tanner is pliant and co-operative when Bond releases him and pulls him from the room. Mallory gives silent consent with the concern etched on his face, as Bond drags the Chief-of-Staff determinedly away, belting him into the passenger seat of the section Range Rover to drive him home.

Nothing is said, and Bond knows that nothing he says can lessen the icy blast of desolation freezing Tanner's soul.

They arrive at Tanner's place and Bond gets him inside, making them both tea and a large double Scotch, despite the early hour. Bond looks around at the sparse, functional decor, and wishes that Tanner would get a life outside the Service, and find a wife. But that's the irony; with no-one to come home to, Tanner gives his life to the Service, which means he has no time to find someone to whom to come home. 

Tanner downs the Scotch almost in one as they sit in silence on his sofa, the tea on the coffee table; Bond has even put down coasters.

As Tanner sits back from putting his glass on the table, Bond reaches across and grabs his shoulders, turning Tanner to face him. There's no reaction in his eyes, it's as if a light has been turned out, and Tanner looks right through him.

Bond isn't a man of words, but he won't sit by and watch Tanner grow cold. He lifts his left hand to Tanner's face and pulls him close, kissing his forehead, inwardly relieved when Tanner allows himself to surrender to his touch.

Bond kisses Tanner's cheek, high on the bone, then down to the square of his jaw, careful precise touches of his lips against the pale, tired skin. But when he lingers on Tanner's neck, on his slowly pulsing vein, a sharp intake of breath alerts him to Tanner _feeling_.

Bond moves his hand to the back of Tanner's head and Tanner responds by putting his own hands on Bond's shoulder's his breath quickening, and his eyes now focussing on Bond, and for the first time since they went to see M, he has a flush of color in his cheeks as his gaze drops to Bond's lips. When it returns to look Bond directly in the eye, it's all the permission he needs to pull Tanner to him, covering his mouth with his own, moving his lips against Tanner's carefully, until his friend opens his mouth to let Bond's tongue caress his own.

Bond slips his right hand around Tanner's back and gently presses him back on the sofa with the other, feeling shy hands start to move on his own back and neck, as Tanner gives in to feelings other than despair.

They kiss for a while, and then James lets his left hand wanders down over Tanner's stomach, settling on the bulge in his trousers. Still kissing him earnestly, Bond expertly unbuckles Tanner's belt and undoes his trousers, fingers sliding inside the cotton shorts to free the hot pooling of Tanner's emotions in his rigid cock.

They break apart from the kiss, and Tanner moans as Bond gently fists his cock. Bond pushes himself off the sofa and on to his knees, shoving the low table back, slopping the tea on to to the polished surface.

He looks up at Tanner, seeing a sad and desperate expression on his face, and then moves between Tanner's knees before leaning forward, taking his hot, twitching cock in his mouth.

Tanner groans and lifts one hand to Bond's head, gently holding it as Bond recalls what he likes to feel when his own cock is sheathed in a pretty mouth; trying to move his tongue and lips in such a way as to give Tanner the same head-melting sensations, wanting him to feel and experience nothing, except for the focused pleasure being lavished on his manhood.

Bond's tongue swirls and rolls around the hot flesh in his mouth, as he slides his lips up and down on the swollen shaft, pleased to hear Tanner moaning and gasping, his hips pushing back and forth in time with Bond's mouth, meeting him halfway. Bond grips the base of Tanner's cock as he hears his breaths grow deep and ragged, a whimper escapes as he starts to come. Tanner grips Bond's arms, throwing his head back against the sofa, eyes screwed tightly shut, gasping as he empties himself into Bond's mouth with a loud affirmation.

Bond swallows the last little tremors out of Tanner, the sound of the Chief-of-Staff's post-orgasmic panting a more delightful sound than the sobs that escaped him in that claustrophobic room. Releasing the softening prick, Bond looks up to see Tanner flushed and perspiring, his eyes still darkened by desire; but now they hold a spark of the old Tanner, the man who baulks at nothing, the unflappable, hyper-efficient authority figure that had shadowed M so loyally.

Bond gets up and sits back beside Tanner on the sofa, turning to look at him with a conspiratorial grin. Tanner gazes back at him almost shyly, and lets Bond fold him into a close embrace.

Bond is aroused, but he doesn't want anything in return just yet; he's happy just to sit here in the knowledge that he's pulled Tanner back from the brink, sure that M would have had an acerbic quip ready about Tanner being the one to be hauled back by his dick.

In the quiet brightness of Tanner's living room, Bond feels a million miles from that dark, exploding hell, in to which M so trustingly followed him, although he suspects that she likely knew she'd probably die. But it doesn't ease the creeping regret and guilt that he's the reason she's gone, the reason Tanner clings to him now, as if he's afraid he'll fall right off the world.

Bond feels a niggling remorse, as he sees the pools of tea settling in ugly stains on the varnished coffee table; but they'll be easily polished out. 

He just hopes what he's done to help Tanner, can erase the ugly stains on his soul.


End file.
